Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-04-05
4, Drear PaAt and a DreaI1er


Present.
The newspapers of both the Pacific
and the Atlantic coasts have been
busy of late with chronicles of the
melancholy past misdeeds of man
Who, by common confession, has
for . number OF decades led spotless
life. The record of his earlier days is
30 burde ned with narrative of afro
cious misadventures that all properly
constituted people would recoil from
him in horror had but tithe OF these
iniqui.ies been known. He proves,
according to all the later advices, not
only to have been a murderer whose
malice was directed not against per-
sons who had done him grievous
wrong, but against persons who could
not possibly have injured him. If
these accounts be true, this man has
aggravated every ordinary incident OF
Ragitious malevolence with violations
of every law of commercial honor.
He has not only sought and COM
passed the blood Of those wlo never
dreamed of doing him wrong,
but he has resorted to the vulgar
devices Of the ignobie heId-forg-
ers, cracksmen and sneak thieves
who swell the dockets of the lesser
corrective magistrates. Forgery and
murder alternate in his career with q
lamentable duality. And yet this
man has for thirty years past been an
honored citizen of California. He
has not bowed his head nor sought
sequestered places, but has stood
amongst the proudest of the citizens
of the State, and his crest has lowered
before that of no man in all this long
time. He has stood high in the coun-
cils of his party. He has assisted in
debating the names of men who have
governed, or assisted to govern, the
State in which he lives. While he
was wise enough to seek no conspicu-
ous trusts, he has been honored by
his neighbors by having been entrust-
ed with important local positions.
His relatives and connections bave
been of the very highest, and truth
compels the confession that in Cali
fornia at leas! he has done nothing to
impair or belittle the social consider
ation which he has acquired and en-
joyed. How strange it all is! We
are confronted, without warm
ing, with the indisputable ev-
idence that this man is a GRIM
inal of the deepest dye-a man
with whom an ordinary malefactor
would disdain to shake hands. No
record of the French galleys-no rev.
elation of the Newgate calendar
sounds more weird or Incredible than
this story of to-day. 1t is case
where otis true tits pity, and pity
'tis tits true" comes most poignantly
to. the front, and where Bulwer's
aphorism that truth is stranger than
fiction is approved. 1t also recalls
that great novelist's Characterization
of Eugene Aram, particularly in its
denouement. 1t is true that in the
ease of Rogers, alias Kissane, there
ID no glowing love affair, but there
needed not that incident, as he was
surrounded by an interesting family.
Environed by everything to make
life agreeable, with the estimation of
. distinguished circle, with honor,
station, troops of friends-this revela-
tion bursts upon Col. Rogers friends
like thunderbolt out of clear sky.
This is the thousandth illustration of
the sentiment voiced by Shakespeare,
'sthat murder, though it hath no
tongue, will yet speak out with
most miraculous organ," and
which sentiment was elaborat-
ed by Daniel Webster in an
oration which challenges COM
parison for eloquence with his famous
effort in reply to Col. Hayne. While
this whole incident is lamentable, it
In nevertheless not without strong
and wholesome moral. While the
years of tranquility which Rogers has
enjoyed seem to give the lie to the
scriptural aphorism that the wicked
fee whom no man pursueth, it also
enforces the striking lesson conveyed
in athew about the man who
builds his house upon the sands.
Wanting in honesty and square pur-
pose, the fabric of mans life is
unstable indeed. The winds blow,
the sand crumbles, and what was
before goodly edifice is as naught.
Yet one cannot forbear kindly |
regret that the Nemesis of the Greeks |
were not purely afable-the progenitor
of that dread Christian retribution |
which sooner or later overtakes every |
man who has done great wrong.
THr reception which the IrJus-